Fuel efficiency up and greenhouse gases down

After decades of complaints about gas-guzzlers that helped increase American dependence on foreign oil, a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report is particularly noteworthy, if not celebratory. It shows that American-made cars and trucks are getting better mileage than ever.

And there's even more that's worthy of horn-tooting: As a result of improved fuel efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions for new cars and trucks are at their lowest levels in decades.

These are significant developments that should be catalysts for automakers to push even harder to meet new federal standards of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Doing so should save consumers more than $8,000 in fuel costs by the middle of the next decade, and further improve air quality. Carbon monoxide emissions decreased by 13 percent from 2007 to 2012.

Credit President Obama for putting into place the toughest fuel efficiency standards in history. While the 23.8 miles per gallon average for 2012 vehicles is a 16 percent improvement in just the past five years, it still lags behind Japan and Europe, which already have higher standards. In fact in Brussels this week, an initial vote is scheduled in the European Parliament that would require more efficient engines as well as hybrid and battery-powered cars and vans. Europe's move toward greater fuel efficiency, proponents argue, would create 400,000 jobs and save tens of billions of euros in fuel costs.

Projected fuel efficiency progress in the United States is linked directly to Obama's historic fuel standards, which force automakers to invest in efficient vehicles. For too long U.S. automakers hedged their bets by producing both gas-guzzlers and fuel-efficient runabouts. The way is finally being cleared for ramping up production of gas-saving microhybrids, and plug-in electric cars to a lesser extent.